GCA Seminar Day 1

This is the first post recapping our lessons from the GCA Church Planting Seminar. Be sure to interact with the question at the bottom. We want to hear your thoughts!

Well, after a late arrival for me and a (mostly) sleepless night for Molly, we arrived in Orlando yesterday eager to learn and glad to be together. We’ve met some really neat people and were able to have dinner with Steve Ogne, EVBC’s church-planting coach. That time alone was invaluable.

Here were some of the key lessons from each session:

Session 1: Vision
The vision for church planting starts with a vision for the glory of God. The chief way that God has chosen to glorify his name is through the kingdom of God. The means God uses to advance his kingdom is the church of God. The church’s power and strength all comes from the gospel of God.

Vision for the Glory of God → Vision for the Kingdom of God → Vision for the Church of God → Vision for the Gospel of God

Session 2: Focus
This session was all about understanding the cultural context of the community we’re planting in. We thought through all the greatest needs of people in our specific community (physical, economic, social, emotional, mental, educational, spiritual and moral) and talked about ways that a new church can meet those needs with the Gospel. This session gave us a number of practical exercises that we’ll begin to do with the launch team so that we can really think like missionaries to the Williams Gateway/Queen Creek communities.

Session 3: Prayer
This session was about the need for strong prayer lives among the leadership and a culture of God-dependent prayer in the new church. I was very encouraged about how this is developing for Second Mile. Here were a few great quotes worth sharing:

Mary, Queen of Scots:

“I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.”

Francis Schaeffer:

“Our greatest danger is not liberalism, modernism, postmodernism, Bible criticism…the greatest danger is the church doing the work of ministry in the power of the flesh.”

Today we have sessions on Philosophy, Discipleship, and Values. Should be fun. Thanks for your prayer. Updates coming tomorrow.

QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION (leave a comment below): Other than the need for Jesus, what are the greatest needs of people in the Williams Gateway/Queen Creek community (physical, economic, social, emotional, mental, educational, spiritual and moral)?

Since it is a university area, you’ll probably have a lot of people with educational needs; people working towards degrees or doing research. Typically college folk are very busy and pretty transient, sometimes far from home. Maybe a need for connection and some temporary permanancy, if that makes sense?

going along with Kristie’s comment it seems like a lot of folks would not have close family near by. If the church can help fill that void for people–surrogate grandparents–gatherings around holidays, etc. I think that would be valuable.